THE DIGITAL DREAM WEEK FOUR

Week four of THE DIGITAL DREAM, a little 75 day art challenge of Studying and Documenting the Process of Learning Digital Painting, and it’s been a very odd week to be honest.

Whereas WEEK ONE was all about getting to grips with everything, WEEK TWO comparing traditional with digital, and WEEK THREE learning some of the key concepts behind working digitally, this week was all about one thing, EYE STRAIN.

I’M SIMPLIFYING THE BLOG POST

Before we get into the eye strain ting, this weeks blog post will be slightly different. Last week I converted the daily videos into a weekly one, and now the blogpost is going to morph into more of a quick diary recap, which is what I originally planned for it, so lets jump in and see what happened this week :)

DAYS 19 TO 24

STUDY EXERCISES

  • Learning Digital Painting Day 019 : Chibi Characters - The Digital Dream Art Challenge with Artist Sophie Lawson
  • Learning Digital Painting Day 020 : Female Gesture Drawings - The Digital Dream Art Challenge with Artist Sophie Lawson
  • Learning Digital Painting Day 021 : Chibi Cat Girl Character - The Digital Dream Art Challenge with Artist Sophie Lawson
  • Learning Digital Painting Day 022 : Traditional Drawing - The Digital Dream Art Challenge with Artist Sophie Lawson
  • Learning Digital Painting Day 023 : Sophie Lawson Sketch - The Digital Dream Art Challenge with Artist Sophie Lawson
  • Learning Digital Painting Day 024 : lilSOPHIE Female Manga Custom Character - The Digital Dream Art Challenge with Artist Sophie Lawson

STUDY EXERCISES

DAY 19 • CHIBI CHARACTERS
Today was all about master studying lil chibi characters; sketching other artists work is my favourite way to learn; As my day job is cleaning, I thought it fitting to sketch a chibi cleaner.

Reference from DeviantArt user
• catPlus.deviantart.com

DAY 20 • FEMALE GESTURE DRAWINGS
This past few days my eyes have been feeling really odd. It’s become so distracting, I’ve ordered a pair of computer glasses. If they don’t help, this art challenge may be getting renamed – The Oil Painting Dream lol I haven’t stopped my daily digital gesture drawing though :)

Gesture Drawings using my favourite website
• QuickPoses.com

DAY 21 • CHIBI CAT GIRL CHARACTER
Time disappears when you’re making Art! I was supposed to have an early night tonight … nope lol Got really into this one, as I tried something different by making her hair be separate layers. Makes me think, you could draw loads of different hair styles, than place them on top of different characters … Kind of like a virtual wigshop lol

Cat Girl Reference by Artist Xithyll
• redbubble.com/people/Xithyll

DAY 22 • TRADITIONAL DRAWING
Where’s the Undo button? I pick up my computer glasses tomorrow, hopefully they help, because today I had to rest my eyes.

I did my daily gesture drawings in Photoshop, but ended up spending the rest of the time with traditional pencils. I’m not making this up … but I was sketching and drew a line, I didn’t like it, so thought, I’ll just undo it lol If I have to abandon working digitally, I’m going to miss that undo button!

DAY 23 • SOPHiE LAWSON SKETCH
Computer glasses seem to work … and they’re sexy. They convert the bright white light into a more warmer shade; easier on the eye, and makes everything look quite nice actually.

For today, I thought I’d turn one of my photos into a digital drawing/painting. I did start to add colour, but ran out of time.

Reference Photo from
• My Photos

DAY 24 • lilSOPHiE – My Custom Character
Captains log, Digital Dream Day 024 … eyes seem ok for another day

I have got to start sketching lilSOPHiE this week, as the days are passing so quickly. She isn’t going to ultimately look like this though; this isn’t chibi, and she’s a chibi … so I need to squish her a bit :) Got to work out how to turn a photo of a person into a chibi character? No idea what I’m doing half the time lol

EYE STRAIN

I never realised how much I was going to suffer with this. It started around week two, but I didn’t really realise. I just thought I was a bit tired. I wasn’t tired though, my eyes were just aching.

At first it was just a bit unpleasant, but it got to the point last week, where on day 22 I had to put the computer to one side and work traditionally instead, just to rest my eyes. I’m a firm believing in leaving no stone unturned, so instead of just calling it quits I’m trying everything I can to reach a point where I can work digitally and feel comfortable.

If I have to stop working digitally I’m ok with that though. The whole point of this experiment was to find out if I enjoy the process, and while I adore the actual act of digitally drawing, I don’t like the eye strain. I’ve done a number of things to try and help so far, including:

  • Installing f.lux
  • switching to my bigger 1080p monitor that was connected to the PS4
  • activating the Windows 10 night mode and
  • purchasing a pair of computer glasses from Amazon

So far they’ve helped, but I do still feel a slight achy feeling. No where near as bad as it was though, so I’m going to give it a few more weeks and see how it goes.

WEEK FIVE

Week Five was a strange one … I realised I had to refocus this whole challenge – Find out more, in the WEEK FIVE BLOG POST

LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED

– Euripides